Category: What is The Establishment?

Donald Trump is predictably retreating somewhat on his tariffs proposal, under strong disapproval from much of his fan base. He is not a leader, but a reality TV star, so no one should expect anything else from him — this is all a ratings game for him. The driving concern in all things is “How do I maintain my position as Number One...

I have written before about my personal history with Mark Levin, such as it is, and also about my deep disappointment at seeing the most principled and intelligent of the major conservative radio hosts playing footsie with Trump and his cult, both before and after Trump became the establishment’s official choice in the GOP primaries. Once again, Levin has doubled down on his...

I borrow the title of this post from Christopher Hitchens’ book about Bill Clinton, which seems fitting, since, as I have argued more than once, Donald Trump — this era’s universal liar — has borrowed the governing style of the best president of his lifetime (according to him): Say whatever suits today’s audience, and play Confuse-a-Cat by stealing popular issues from your opponents....

Donald Trump, who built an entire campaign and personal cult out of (sort of) promising to build a thirty-foot-high border wall that Mexico would (sort of) pay for, while in the process (sort of) sending illegal immigrants out of the country, is now sounding a little softer on immigration than “Little Marco.” A few days ago, an official Trump spokesman was out on...

And so it begins. Donald Trump, President of history’s foremost living argument for the practical benefits of economic liberty and international free trade, has slapped massive tariffs on imported washing machines, apparently in direct response to demands from the U.S. manufacturer, Whirlpool. If that sounds exactly like crony capitalism to you, then your ears are working well. Why should anyone be surprised? During...

Rush Limbaugh is apparently outdoing himself these days in his usual role as deflector-in-chief regarding the Republican Party’s corruption. According to Right Scoop, he’s been harping lately on the way the media is exuding fake moral outrage about Donald Trump’s crude and idiotic comments…er, I mean brilliant and chess master-like comments about “people from s-hole countries,” and the like. What hypocrites they are,...

Matt Drudge — for years the GOP establishment’s most influential and valuable mouthpiece (aka fraud) within the so-called “new media” — inserts himself into the Trump-Bannon messy divorce case as Trump’s public defender and deflector shield. No surprise there. But what most people will fail to see is whom Drudge’s seek and destroy mission is really destined and designed to help: Mitch McConnell....

The GOP’s McConnell-Rove establishment — to which Donald Trump normally clings when it’s decision-making time, rather than brand-selling time — judged Roy Moore an enemy of its uniparty state long before any allegations of dating relationships with young women, and in one case an underage girl, came to light. (That, recall, was why Trump supported McConnell’s lackey Luther Strange against Moore in the...

U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, in a briefs statement, has retired from Congress amid allegations that he was a congressman longer than anyone else. In briefs, following typical congressional fashion (undergarments department), he acted like a power-mad potentate or a member of the British royal family, eliciting the claim that all his aides have seen him in his Jockeys. For his part, Conyers...

Remember when the defining issue for the “throw-caution-to-the-wind” faction of the Republican grassroots was the somewhat romantic push to end the Federal Reserve. Now that pie-in-the-sky faction has been displaced by the “throw-roses-before-Trump” crowd, and apparently the Fed is no longer a concern — unless and until Trump tweets new instructions to his followers, that is. For the time being, however, Trump, preserving...